Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2012;7(3):e31658. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0031658. Epub 2012 Mar 16.
The transcription factor etsrp/Er71/Etv2 is a master control gene for vasculogenesis in all species studied to date. It is also required for hematopoiesis in zebrafish and mice. Several novel genes expressed in vasculature have been identified through transcriptional profiling of zebrafish embryos overexpressing etsrp by microarrays. Here we re-examined this transcriptional profile by Illumina RNA-sequencing technology, revealing a substantially increased number of candidate genes regulated by etsrp. Expression studies of 50 selected candidate genes from this dataset resulted in the identification of 39 new genes that are expressed in vascular cells. Regulation of these genes by etsrp was confirmed by their ectopic induction in etsrp overexpressing and decreased expression in etsrp deficient embryos. Our studies demonstrate the effectiveness of the RNA-sequencing technology to identify biologically relevant genes in zebrfish and produced a comprehensive profile of genes previously unexplored in vascular endothelial cell biology.
转录因子 etsrp/Er71/Etv2 是迄今为止所有研究物种血管生成的主控基因。它也是斑马鱼和小鼠造血所必需的。通过微阵列过表达 etsrp 的斑马鱼胚胎的转录谱分析，已经鉴定出几种在脉管系统中表达的新基因。在这里，我们通过 Illumina RNA-seq 技术重新检查了这个转录谱，揭示了由 etsrp 调控的候选基因数量显著增加。对来自该数据集的 50 个选定候选基因的表达研究导致鉴定出 39 个新基因，这些基因在血管细胞中表达。通过在过表达 etsrp 的胚胎中异位诱导这些基因，并在 etsrp 缺陷型胚胎中降低其表达，证实了这些基因受 etsrp 的调控。我们的研究证明了 RNA-seq 技术在鉴定斑马鱼中具有生物学意义的基因方面的有效性，并产生了一个以前在血管内皮细胞生物学中未被探索的基因的综合图谱。
